


This Real Forever

by hinotoriii



Series: Oscar Trevelyan [14]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 12:17:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4521624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinotoriii/pseuds/hinotoriii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>'The world can have everything else, but it will not take these memories I cherish away from me'.</i>
</p><p>Oscar worries about what the future will say of what the current Inquisition achieves in all its work after meeting a long lost face to the ages. Dorian, however, is there to help make his concerns seem less important than they currently feel within his mind. And to remind him of how they cannot control everything surrounding them, no matter how hard they may wish to do so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Real Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Slight spoilers from the _Jaws of Hakkon DLC_ , mostly in the form of dialogue which is quoted. Also perhaps in the reveal of a certain character. I've tried to keep some edge of vagueness to things, but this idea really wouldn't leave me alone.

"I can hear you thinking, you know."  
  
From where he has pressed himself curled close into Dorian's side Oscar breathes in a sharp breath, letting it out in a long and heavy sigh not long afterwards. He stirs, the flutter of his eyelids threatening to tickle against Dorian's skin.  
  
"I thought you were sleeping," he says, the words sounding gentle mixed amongst the quiet night air within their tent. Dorian breathes out a short laugh, Oscar taking note of the way his body rises and falls in reaction to the movement whilst Dorian wraps his arm more securely around Oscar’s waist.  
  
"It's impossible to do so with you thinking so loudly," Dorian jokes. "Although you should be asleep also. Weren't you the one telling everyone earlier that we rise early tomorrow to start on our return back to Skyhold?"  
  
Oscar says nothing. He loses himself to his thoughts again at the reminder of all they would soon be leaving behind them, frowning as he lets himself consider all they've come to discover and learn on what had started out as a rather different and somewhat simpler mission. None of it had been anything he had expected - not that he even knew what he had been expecting beforehand, really - yet he could not have ever foreseen such events affecting him as much as they had ended up doing.  
  
"What he said," Dorian continues, laughter gone now as he pulls Oscar back into reality. "It's really managed to trouble you, hasn't it?"  
  
Oscar looks up, resting his chin upon Dorian as he stares back into the worry written across Dorian's face, furrowing into his brow. There's no explanation, no greater need to expand on who it is Dorian refers to, for there is only one person of which they both know it to be.  
  
Ameridan.  
  
"It's more than simply what it was he said," Oscar murmurs, letting his gaze fall towards where his finger has started tracing lazy patterns into the skin of Dorian's shoulder. He frowns. "And yet it's ... difficult to put into words. I guess the best way to explain it is as ... like looking into a mirror."  
  
"A mirror?" Asks Dorian. Oscar nods.  
  
"A mirror of myself. Of what I am. Or more what people see me as being, I guess." He pauses, staring intently on where his finger has suddenly stopped in its path. "It felt like I was seeing what the future likely holds for me."  
  
Dorian moves, sliding to sit up slightly as he reaches for Oscar's hand with his own, interlacing them.  
  
" _Amatus,_ " he begins, and Oscar can now even hear the heavy edge of concern in his voice. "You can't know that..."  
  
"I know it sounds daft and ... well, ridiculous really. After all, the world has changed an awful lot in the eight hundred years Ameridan had been missing for. But then when I let myself think about it; has it really changed as much as we believe? What if the true version of me becomes lost to the ages, just as his did? What if all I am becomes wrapped in nothing more but assumptions and lies thought up by various researchers and scholars?"  
  
"That's not something you can control, none of us can."  
  
"But what if history forgets more than that?" Asks Oscar, facing Dorian. "What if it forgets the important things our Inquisition fought for? Or of the people who helped and became such an important part of it? Will it forget how Josephine always best knows how to communicate with someone, even if they’re someone she dislikes? Will it remember how Bull and Krem train for hours with Cullen's soldiers sometimes, just for all of their enjoyment and fun? What about the novels Varric writes outside of _Tales of the Champion_ , or how Cassandra practically devours _Swords and Shields_ with enthusiasm and ease when she thinks no one’s looking? And what will be said about you?"  
  
"What about me?" Questions Dorian. "History can't be so quick as to forget someone as unique as I. Surely you know that."  
  
"You jest, but I'm serious," Oscar says, shaking his head as he looks away to the side. "I don't want someone to write out your importance to me. To spin tales that are in no way true. I want the world to know the truth, the whole of it. How you fought with us, how you became both an ally and a close friend to many. How without you we’d likely be struggling at trying to break the strength of the Venatori down, or that we wouldn’t have been able to track what house Corypheus once belonged to back when he still held some humanity to his name. Not to mention how it was I came to fall for you quicker than I could have ever anticipated."  
  
"And this all is running through your mind right now? It's little wonder why sleep won’t come to you."   
  
Dorian leans forward, pressing his forehead against Oscar's in an intimate gesture. It registers Oscar into silence once more, and he feels a sense of belonging wash over him at the close contact. It calms him, pushing away a few of his own worries and replacing them with the warmth of Dorian's care for him.

For just a moment in time, all the worries currently running through Oscar’s mind seem to quieten and dull in their wake.  
  
"No one can know the future, _amatus_. Not you, nor I, nor even Amerdian could foresee his own. What is important to focus on however is the now," He pauses, and Oscar sees that Dorian struggles on what it is he tries to say next. "For us, our worries and concerns should be on what is before us in our own lives. We can try to take control of it for ourselves and succeed in doing so, but we can’t control whatever comes after. Nor, do I believe, will we find it will matter once we part ways from this world."

Oscar takes in the words, letting them settle into his mind. He knows that they’re right, yet for whatever reason, there’s a difficulty in being able to let go of his concerns. It hadn’t bothered him before, not much, but now after seeing first hand how easily things can be forgotten …

“The world will remember the larger parts of all you achieve. Even if it fills in the rest when there’s no one left to correct those who are wrong, it doesn’t make what really happens fade from existence.”

It’s still not as easy as just believing and accepting that, not for Oscar. Yet as he looks at Dorian again, all he sees reflecting back at him is tenderness. A hope in that his words might be enough to at least lessen Oscar’s fears, even if only for now. And Oscar knows. He knows how much Dorian struggles to reassure with words sometimes, how it is he wishes to help whenever Oscar worries or seems conflicted over something, yet not knowing just quite how to go about doing so in the right way. Knowing that his current concerns are difficult and still rather raw - unusual, even, compared to the worries regular people have in their lives - Oscar can only appreciate how it is Dorian tries.

Oscar can only love him for it.

He offers Dorian a soft, small and sincere smile; reaching forward press a hand against his cheek, carefully moving so to bring a little more distance between them briefly. Oscar takes a moment to look at Dorian, taking in everything about his current expression, his own softening in return.

“I love you, Dorian.”

The surprise rises quickly, with Dorian widening his eyes at the confession he so suddenly hears. He tenses under Oscar's touch for a moment, but Oscar had expected he might do as much. In return he strokes his hand calmly against Dorian’s cheek, continuing to watch him with the same level of devotion he always feels for him.

“I’m not expecting you to say the words back. I don’t really mind if you find you never can. I just want for you to know I feel that way for you. I should have told you a while back, but I felt as if I could never find the right time,” Oscar pauses, contemplative for a second before continuing. “Maybe I never really needed one.”

He doesn’t know what to expect, but at the very least he feels Dorian relax once more. Oscar knew he could have run if his words had scared him too much, yet what Dorian does do manages to surprise him. He doesn’t respond, nor does he say anything - no witty remarks, no sarcasm. Not even any forgiveness for not feeling the same way (although Oscar knew how unlikely it was for that to be true, based on how Dorian treats him compared to everyone else they know) -. Instead he begins to lean forward, until finally he is pressing his lips against Oscar’s own fiercely. The pressure of the kiss startles Oscar briefly, yet he soon responds with similar passion.

_I was told I was needed, as I suspect you were needed._

_‘There are different ways to be needed’_ Oscar thinks, as Dorian starts to move so that he’s leaning above him, whilst Oscar moves to lay on his back.

_I wasn’t Inquisitor by choice. It was never something I wanted._

Despite what's happened in all the events of his past Oscar knows that he now has something which he _does_ want, some _one_ who he never would have known had it not been for the Inquisition's reintroduction into the world in the first place. The same someone whose face is pressed against his neck now,  whose lips continue to move against the skin there and anywhere they can find.

_I had goals for my life before. I had my own dreams…_

Dreams he likely never would have been able to live, not with what his life was like before. Now it was all different. Now there are new dreams; ones he perhaps can share with Dorian one day once they’ve completed what it is they’ve set out to do, who they’ve set out to defeat. Dorian, who is the very person currently taking away the vial of oil from where Oscar offers it to him, their fingertips brushing at the brief contact they make.

_… Whatever my life was before ..._

Their movements are slow and passionate, two bodies sliding together as one to an unsung rhythm, fitting together like two long lost puzzle pieces. If Oscar's hands grip a little more firmly into Dorian's back, if his legs wrap around Dorian's hips a little more tightly then it is only to ground himself further into the moment; to remind himself of where it is he is now and focus on everything he feels. _This is now,_ he tells himself. He is living in this one moment, not the possibilities of what may or may not happen in the future carved out before him.

_… Take moments of happiness where you find them. For the world will take the rest._

His body arches, and as Oscar breathes out a wordless gasp he feels how a hand reaches up to wrap securely around his own, the green light of the anchor filtering between the small spaces between their fingers. Dorian’s hand squeezes around his own, reassuring and supportive, a precious reminder that he is there with him. He is there, and likely will be for a long, long time.

It’s more than enough.

It always will be.

* * *

Much later, as Dorian sleeps by his side, Oscar trails his fingers up and down a path along his back. He still can’t help but to worry about what the future may hold before them, or what it might say about what it is they’re all currently putting their lives on the line for once they've all left this world, but he is able to set it aside deep within his mind for the time being.

Instead, he chooses to watch how peacefully Dorian sleeps. He smiles tiredly at how content he appears, painting a picture in his thoughts of the way Dorian's hair is slightly messy in a way he would never approve of, burning to his mind the way Dorian would move closer against his body once more whenever he had accidentally moved a little too far away in his own earlier efforts to get comfortable. Things he never wishes to loose or let go of. Moments that will always belong to only Dorian and himself, regardless of if history remembers their involvement with and meaning towards one another or not.

 _'Allow me these moments for as long as I may be blessed enough to have them',_ Oscar thinks, leaning forward to press a kiss of his own against Dorian’s forehead.

_'The world can have everything else, but it will not take these memories I cherish away from me'._


End file.
